iPhone Users Angry Over AT&T Upgrade Policy

All is not sweetness and light in the wake of the Apple WWDC kickoff announcements, especially concerning the evolution of the iPhone. Reader Hugh Pickens writes: "AT&T will offer the new iPhone 3G S when it debuts later this month at a cost of $199 and $299 for the 16GB and 32GB models, but only to new customers and those who qualify for the discounted price. AT&T subscribers with an iPhone 3G who are not eligible for an upgrade — those not near the end of their two-year contracts — will have to pay $200 more — $399 for the 16GB model and $499 for the 32GB model. 'This is ridiculous and slap in the face to long-time loyal iPhone customers like me who switched from T-Mobile and the only reason was the iPhone,' writes one unhappy iPhone customer. 'We have to mount a vigorous campaign to change this policy. Call your local AT&T and ask for the manager and complain. Send e-mails and post in forums everywhere.' The issue is spurring heavy debate on support discussion forums, with some customers supporting AT&T. 'The option you have is to honor the contract you freely committed yourself to,' says one forum member. 'If you want to upgrade early then you will have to pay full price with no subsidy discount. You can't blame anyone but yourself for your predicament.'"

Comments

Re:BooHoo

[ScrewMaster]

You know Apple releases a new phone every year, and you know AT&T makes you sign a 2-year contract. Either pay the higher price for the upgrade or live through the horror of not having the latest shiny product until your contract runs out.

Absolutely. Besides, early adopters always get the shaft. That's the price you pay for being an early adopter.

Me, I bought a G1 a few months ago, and the G2 is coming out this month, I understand. I'll have to wait to see if I do, in fact, end up feeling screwed. If so ... I screwed myself and I did it willingly because I didn't want to wait.

Bunch of crybabies.

Re:BooHoo

[mysidia]

They could have a 10000% profit margin in their text messaging and cellular plans business.

While having massive losses or only modest profit in other businesses. It just depends on how much of their business is cellular.

A lot of the business ATT has in phone companies it acquired is not cellular. Think plain old telephone service.

Long distance, and other carrier services...

Recall that in the areas where they are ILEC, they have build-out requirements imposed on them.... highly massive infrastructure costs to deploy certain telco services to all residences..

And "tarrifed" services, which are price-regulated, so they can't charge person A and person B in the same community different prices for their basic phone line (just because it's 100x as expensive to reach person B due to geography, doesn't mean they can charge person B $200/month instead of the normal $15/month, in order to recover costs).

Yes, it can be expensive to deploy hundreds of antennas in a county to provide wireless connectivity. I won't say mobile services are dirt cheap.

But compared to the costs of providing land line service to millions of homes, it could be just plain tiny......

And i'm sure ATT has other businesses.

Re:BooHoo

[Forge]

My fault for not Clarifying.

I live in Jamaica. Our telecoms regulations are somewhat different and our phone companies are a lot different. (especially the dominant cellular provider).

The most popular phone plan (Something like 93% of the market) is "prepaid". Meaning. You can buy a phone and spend less than U$10 per year on call credit if all you do is receive calls. (They require at least one top-up every quarter)

With that kind of structure, the phone companies take a gamble every time they subsidize the cost of an instrument. For this reason, mid range phones are sold at near cost and High end phones are sold at a profit.

Note the prices. The Exchange rate is roughly JM $90 to US $1. So that Bottom of the line Nokia 1200 is selling for under $13 with no contract or obligation. A true disposable phone. While the BlackBerry Storm is $777.